The invention relates to jig saws of the type comprising a saw foot whose lower surface is placed on a support such as a workpiece and a drive unit which is carried by the saw foot and may be rocked in relation thereto (for instance by being tilted sideways in relation to the direction of motion of the jig saw). The drive unit is adapted to drive a tool such as jig saw blade which it holds so that a section of the blade projects beyond the lower surface of the foot. The tool is supported adjacent the saw foot by supporting means and more particularly directly over the foot, laterally in relation to the direction of sawing.
Such jig saws may be used for example in such a way that the foot is placed on the work to be saved and then pushed along by applying a force to the drive unit, the sawing tool, normally a toothed jig saw blade, having its active part protruding into the work and cutting it. In this respect a large area of the jig saw blade on both sides thereof runs on guide means operating directly over the jig saw foot so that the jig saw blade is steadied and prevented from running skew. It is thus possible to perform true sawing work with a neat, fine sawing cut.
Jig saws of this type are described in the German unexamined patent specification No. 3,420,442 and they have a guide means which is generally in the form of two steadying elements engaging the side of the tool and is securely fixed on the jig saw foot. The result is that it is possible to perform straight cuts with the jig saw blade standing perpendicular to the jig saw foot. However, when it comes to performing bevel cuts, that is to say cuts in which the drive unit has to be tilted about an axis extending in the normal direction of sawing so that the plane of cutting by the tool is no longer at a right angle to the work, the cut is very much less regular, because in order to avoid the blade jamming in the guide means, i. e. snatching of the tool, the guide means has to be removed from the tool both when tilting and also when carrying out the bevel cut so that in such cases the tool is no longer supported at the level of the jig saw foot. The guide means of such known jig saws thus only functions when cutting straight whereas during bevel cutting there are the familiar drawbacks of jig saws not having guide means, such as failing to cut straight, skew running and the like.